Champagne And Ice Pops
by Mr Sinister
Summary: Bobby Drake has a date - with the White Queen?! What's he thinking?!! (This takes place in the same continuity as most of my Betsy fics, but doesn't really reference them, so no continuity troubles should ensue...)


**_Champagne_****_ and Ice Pops_**

   _I don't believe I'm doing this._

   "Me neither, Robert," Emma Frost tells me from across the restaurant table without looking up. Instead, she carries on looking through the menu and wine list as if nothing has happened.

   "Jeez, Emma," I say, embarrassed. "Do you have to do that all the time?"

   "No," she replies, finally turning her attention to me. "But I like to. Anything to make a man blush, Bobby." She wrinkles her nose at me, smiling a smile that makes me feel even more ill at ease, and then looks at the wine list, tapping her cheek with an elegant fingertip. "Now, then… about the wine. Do you like Chardonnay?" she asks me, as if I have any choice in the matter.

   "Sure," I tell her breathlessly, gulping down some of the beer I'd ordered before she arrived – fashionably late, of course – and playing awkwardly with my napkin. "Why not?" 

   Emma sighs. "Do stop fidgeting, Bobby. I'm not going to bite you – not yet, anyway." 

   _Oh boy… _

   "Really, Bobby – I won't do anything you don't ask me to," Emma laughs softly, her blue eyes giving away the fact that she obviously heard me again. This is going to be a long night... "What I really _do want to know is why you chose to call me up out of the blue, and ask me if I wanted to – quote-unquote – 'grab a bite to eat' with you. And I don't want to have to take the answer myself." She pauses to sip genteelly from the glass of wine I'd ordered for her before she arrived, and then folds her hands across the table, leaning forwards slightly. "Come on, Bobby. I'm interested. Why me?"_

   Scratching the nape of my neck nervously for a second or two before I reply, I say without thinking "Well, Emma… truth be told, you weren't first on my list of people to call."

   _Oops. Brilliant plan, Einstein. Tell a beautiful woman she wasn't your first choice for a date. Nicely done… I can see Emma's blue eyes flashing with irritation (rage, maybe? God, I hope not… I knew I had a lousy record with girls, but at least I managed to get through the first date with most of them __without ending up a mental vegetable), and I know that I'm going to have to try and pull my feet out of my mouth somehow. _

   "Um… what I meant was that… well, I didn't want to drag you all the way down from Massachusetts just to have dinner with a blue-collar schmoe like me."

   "Well, that's a little less awful than it first sounded, I suppose," Emma says through pursed lips, her right eyebrow arched indignantly. "But not by much, mind you." She scratches her earlobe delicately, and gestures into the air with her gloved right hand. "So tell me, who was higher on the list?"

   I gulp. "You really want to know?"

   "Yes, Bobby. Really. Maybe if I know who they are, then I can have them killed."

   I laugh nervously at that. With Emma, I'm never sure if she's joking or not. "Well, I did consider asking Cecelia, but… she was busy with Kurt. Jean was off-limits, natch. Betsy's too busy trying to get over what happened to her in the Bronx to even _think about having a good time right now – and the last time I called Lorna or Opal, dinosaurs were walking the Earth."_

   "So you called me instead. How… _touching," Emma says curtly. I can tell that she's not exactly glowing with goodwill towards me right now, so I think I'd better try and salvage the situation. "Why?"_

   "Because we still have things to talk about," I say, uncertainly. "Because I want to get to know you better. I mean, you already know me better than I know myself – I want to be able to say the same about you."

   "I… see," Emma says thoughtfully. "Any other reason?"

   "Uh… you're really hot?" _Smooth, Bobby, smooth…_

   Emma sighs once more, and sips more of her wine, before setting her glass down beside her knife. "I see now why you trained to become an accountant instead of a poet, and why you have such a dreadful record where women are concerned. Are you absolutely _positive that you want me to stay, Bobby? I'm sure if I offered Doctor Reyes enough money, she'd cancel her plans." She reaches into her handbag for her cell phone. "Really, I can do that right now if you want me to."_

   "No, Emma, I want you to stay. I wouldn't have called you if I didn't."

   "Really? It sounds to me, Robert, as if you have plenty of female company you'd rather spend your evening with instead of me."

   "Perhaps I do," I say, more firmly, "but none of them makes me feel the way you do."

   "Oh?" I can see intrigue in her face now, as she puts her cell phone back into her purse, and lays her Gucci bag back at the foot of her chair. "And how _do I make you feel?"_

   "Can't you tell? I can't even talk to you without making an ass of myself, Emma – and based on my track record, that usually means that I find a woman very attractive." Emma's smile widens, and she leans forward slightly in her chair, folding her arms across the table as she does so. It's pretty disconcerting – not terribly so, but it still seems as if she's trying to pry the information out of me by any means necessary, even if it doesn't involve her telepathy.

   "Ooh… the plot thickens," she says, a look of amusement crossing her face. "And why would you do that, pray tell?"

   "Come on, Emma. You know what you used to wear when you were a member of the Inner Circle. Even Stevie freakin' _Wonder would have been able to see what you've got underneath it."_

   That makes her laugh out loud, to my complete surprise. "Bobby, that was the whole _point. Do you know what we used to do in that place when we weren't trying to kill you X-Men? Sebastian Shaw and I used to –"_

   I hold my hands up. "Whoa, there, cowgirl – I'm not sure I _want to know what you used to do. The point is, you're a really attractive woman, Emma… but that's not why I asked you here."_

   "Well, then, don't leave a girl on tenterhooks," Emma exclaims, rubbing her foot gently, but firmly, against my calf. The way that she doesn't even seem to be concentrating on anything else but our conversation suggests to me that this is probably a very familiar setting for her… which only makes me that much more nervous. "You've got my attention now. Don't waste it." She looks like a lioness getting ready to pounce on a poor, helpless baby gazelle (in other words, me). Somehow I'm even less inclined to be open with her… but what the hell, I certainly can't make things any worse for my reputation as an idiot, can I? 

   "Oh boy…" I take a deep breath, and then swallow, suddenly unsure of myself – as I'm sure Emma intended. "I've, uh… I've always found you physically attractive, Emma. I just never really thought of you in any _other way until you and I had that little… chat… about me, and about my powers. I saw a side of you I'd never seen before."_

   Emma's eyes widen, and she raises her eyebrows as high as they'll go. As she does so, I can feel her foot stop its rhythmic motion against my leg and return to her side of the table. I hope that that's a good sign… "Well, I never expected to hear that, I must say. Was I not scary enough?" She laughs. "I'd have thought the way I made myself out to be a fan of ice-bondage would have turned you right off me."

   That makes me grin for the first time since this dinner began. "Well, yeah, that did occur to me. If you ask me to do that again, I might have to say no." I gulp down some more beer quickly. "It was the way you seemed so… I dunno… _human, when you told me about your Hellions. Really touched me, in a Kate-Winslet-in-__Titanic kinda way." I pause once more, briefly, before speaking again. "Besides, Jubilee tells me you're a fan of Bruce Springsteen. Anybody who likes that guy can't be bad, right?" _

   Emma rolls her eyes. "Jubilation is… economical with the truth, when it suits her to be that way. I never told her anything of the kind. All I said was that I liked _Born In The USA, because of its political message. I like some Billy Joel songs, and George Orwell, for the same reason – nothing more."_

   "Good enough for me," I say, shrugging. "Now why don't _you tell__ me why you agreed to this whole shebang?"_

   Emma leans back in her chair for a moment or two before answering, her face clearly displaying signs of irritation – although how much irritation, I'm not sure (although that's not saying much. With Emma, I'm never sure of anything). "Frankly, Bobby, I have no idea. Perhaps I felt some pity for you when you told me you needed some company." She pauses. "I think working with children again has turned me into some kind of emotionally-driven mother hen. If it hadn't, I don't think listening to your problems would have been quite so easy."

   My smile widens. "Uh huh – whatever you say, mother hen. Anything else you want to tell me?"

   "I was bored," Emma says simply. "I thought maybe watching you making an idiot of yourself would be fun." She sighs. "And because I thought you might actually have grown up a little since our last little chat. Anybody can have a dream…"

   "Sorry, Emma – I'm still as big a jerk as I used to be."

   "Yes, Bobby, I _had noticed," she replies, tipping her head slightly to one side, her neatly bobbed hair bouncing over her shoulders as she does so. "I suppose some things never change, do they?"_

   "Nope," I say, triumphantly. "I'll be class clown until the day I go to the big Popsicle factory in the sky."

   Emma makes a face. "Now _there's an interesting image – something for me to bear in mind if I get bored, perhaps." She gestures at the menu. "Do you want to order some food, or are we going to sit here and talk all evening? I __am a very busy woman, you know. I have places to go –"_

   "And people to see," I finish for her. "Yeah, I thought you might. You sure you want to stay? I mean, if you have other arrangements, I guess we can just go to Subway, or something…"

   "That _was a joke, I hope?" Emma snaps, frowning thunderously. "Fast food is a last resort I hope I will never have to fall back on." She rolls her eyes again. "Too much grease and too little substance for me – and besides which, having to queue like animals waiting for slopping-out time is not something I'd like to experience on a regular basis." I gulp, and slap my forehead with the palm of my right hand._

   "Oh. Yeah. Which foot you want me to put back in my mouth?"

   Emma arches one eyebrow again. "Both will do nicely, Bobby." Her smile returns, however, despite herself. "But then again, what should I expect from a self-proclaimed class clown?" She reaches across the table and touches my hand – the first above-the-table physical contact she's initiated so far – and gives me a… _reassuring look, I think. "Oh, for goodness sake, __relax, you idiot. I'm not going to go anywhere until we're finished." She beckons a waiter over and reels off her order, asking for a bottle of wine and some water while she does so._

   "Sir?" the waiter asks, his pen at the ready.

   "Who, me?" I say, unsure of myself for a second or two. "Oh, yeah. I guess I'll have the… the grilled chicken and Caesar salad, followed by the Black Forest gateau. Thanks, man."

   Once the waiter is gone, Emma looks at me curiously. "Not used to being called 'sir', Bobby?"

   I shrug, a sheepish look plastering itself all over my face. "Not really – not in that context, anyway. Usually it's followed by 'you're making a scene', so no; I'm not used to it. You know how it is."

   "I'm sure I do," Emma says, laughing. "You wouldn't believe the number of times I got thrown out of places like this when I was younger, after all."

   "Really?" That doesn't really surprise me, truth be told, but it's still quite funny to hear Emma admitting it.

   "Oh, absolutely," she replies, with a wicked grin. "I don't think they were quite ready for me, then. Of course, now that I have my own money, I can dress however I want to, and they still beg me to come and give them my patronage. Odd, don't you think?"

   "Yeah – completely." I shrug, and then gesture at my clothes. "You know I'd never have been let in here if I hadn't worn my graduation suit, don't you?"

   "I don't doubt it." Emma pauses and looks me up and down for a moment or two. "Wait a second – you wore that to your graduation? And it still fits?"

   "Well, yeah." I tap my temple, as if to tell her to use her brain for something other than mind-reading. "Remember what I do, Emma. Not enough time for me to sit around, eat junk, and drink beer, really, is there?"

   "Touché," she replies, and then gives me another looking-over. "You _have kept in marvellous shape, though. You know what – if we weren't about to eat, I'd ask you to give me a twirl, just so I could get an all-round view of you. Jubilee __did tell me you had a splendid behind, after all…"_

   I feel an involuntary heat come to my cheeks just then. I'm not sure why – after all, other girls have said much worse and it hasn't fazed me…

   _But I'm not 'other girls', am I, Bobby? Emma asks me, a predatory smile crossing her lips._

   "No, Emma, you're not," I admit quietly. "Not at all." 

   Emma reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ears, and then looks up at me through her lashes for a moment, the lioness-like glint in her eyes receding slightly. "I like to think so, too. Who wants to be one of the crowd, after all?" She chuckles lightly, and sips her wine again.

   "Well, I _tried doing that," I say brightly, "but all it got me was this stupid T-shirt." I swallow nervously, and then raise my eyebrows in defeat. "That… probably would have worked better if I actually __had a T-shirt to show for it, I'm guessing."_

   "Yes, I think so," Emma agrees. "But I think you'd look equally good without one, don't you?" I can feel the blush returning to my cheeks, and it makes me even more uncomfortable.

   "Do you ever stop doing that?" I ask, incredulously. 

   "No." Emma pauses, in order to play with my tie for a moment or two, as if to underline her point. "Do you ever stop joking around?"

   "Good point," I concede. "I guess we're both as bad as each other."

   Emma chuckles softly. "It certainly looks that way, doesn't it?" She reaches into her bag, takes out her purse, and gestures towards the salad bar in the corner of the room. "I'm going to get myself some extra salad. Would you like something?"

   I shake my head. "Nah. I'm good, thanks." Emma nods, briefly, before getting up out of her chair and slowly pushing it underneath the table.

   "All right, Bobby. Do try not to get into any trouble while I'm gone."

   "Are you sure you don't want me to come just so you can keep an eye on me?" I suggest.

   "It's a tempting thought, darling, but I know you're a big boy now. Despite my misgivings, I can tell you can look after yourself for five minutes." She smiles sweetly at me, and then leaves me to finish my beer.

   _You know, we could always keep talking this way, if you wanted to, she sends to me, as she sashays across the restaurant's floor, attracting envious looks from women and lustful stares from men._

   _Do you really want to? I reply._

   _It's one distraction I could do without, but I think I can manage it for five minutes, don't you?_

_   I guess… I begin. __Hey, do you know how many women are thinking about plastic surgery because of you right now?_

_   Five, Emma tells me without a pause. __And yes, I do __know that was a rhetorical question. Is it my fault if they do actually happen to be thinking that? I can sense the satisfaction that Emma is feeling right now, almost as if it's my own. It feels good, in a weird kind of way._

_   I guess not, but… that's pretty creepy._

_  Oh, you get used to those kinds of thoughts, when you look the way I do, Emma tells me, her tone sprinkled with telepathic laughter. _

   _You're… joking, right? I ask her._

   _Half, she replies, breezily. __Are you sure you don't want anything?_

_   Completely. I'll stick with my Caesar salad, thanks. Abruptly, I see the waiter coming to our table with our meals and I gesture to Emma that our food is about to arrive. When she sees me trying to beckon her over, she walks quickly back to her seat and sits down to her richly-scented venison cutlets. She thanks the waiter politely, and then cuts herself a delicate mouthful of meat, placing it into her mouth in a very precise way. _

   _Would you like to carry on talking like this? she asks me, as she finishes her mouthful and dabs at her lips with her napkin._

   "I'll stick to this way of communicating for now," I say aloud.

   "Understandable, I suppose," she replies, with a small smile. "I've never known a headblind person to want to talk like that for longer than they have to. I think it's some sort of inbuilt reflex."

   "Maybe," I say thoughtfully. "Or maybe we just don't like the idea of somebody running around inside our heads like they own the place?"

   "Well, Bobby, in your case, your brain is up for rent most of the time anyway, so I don't know how you even noticed I was there," Emma retorts, giving me a cockeyed look as she does so.

   "Ha, ha, Emma. Watch me fall out of my seat laughing at your stunning wit." I rub my stomach theatrically so as to indicate my apparent lack of amusement. 

   Emma keeps on eating, taking small, precise bites of her food. "Oh, please. Is it my fault that you don't appreciate my sense of humour?"

   "You're lucky I don't just freeze your dinner right now," I tell her, a mischievous feeling coming over me. "I doubt that'd taste so good with ice crystals all over it."

   "Ah, but you see, Bobby, if you did that, you'd end up coughing your brain up through your nose." Emma's tone does not change, but I can tell that she means what she says. Then she looks up at me and continues "I think I can see where Jubilee gets her rebellious side from. Did you give her lessons in how to be a naughty teenager, or did she just copy you without any prompting?"

   "What can I say?" I pose with my hands on my hips, as if I've just won a strongman competition. "Everybody wants to be like the Ice-Meister."

   Emma raises her eyebrows again. "I doubt that, somehow." She gives my posing a disapproving look and then gestures at my food. "You really should eat that, you know. It'll get cold unless you stop acting like an idiot." After a second or two, she realises what she's just said, and corrects herself. "I take that back. It'll get cold whether you act like an idiot or not." She narrows one eye and looks at me warily. "It might even get cold if you sneeze too hard and ice the table up."

   I roll my eyes. "I think I have more control over my powers than that." She still looks unconvinced, so I shift direction and try a different tack, appealing to her capricious, hedonistic side.  "Oh, come on, Emma, you know you want to follow in my footsteps."

   "Well, if it means getting a high-school diploma by studying under a teacher like Charles, I'll pass," Emma says flatly. "I don't know how you managed."

   "With great difficulty, is how." I slice up some chicken breast and try to be as neat as possible in putting it into my mouth. "I'll tell you what, Emma – he made science about as much fun as chewing my own leg off." I sigh. "Hank loved it, though. But that's no surprise, is it?"

   "I suppose not," Emma admits. "Doctor McCoy wouldn't have got where he is today by not enjoying his schooling."

   "I guess so. The upside to the whole thing is that I get to make DeForest Kelly jokes all the time. You wouldn't believe the amount of times he's tried to burst his own eardrums just so he wouldn't have to hear 'Dammit, Jim – I'm a doctor, not a chew toy!' every time one of his experiments went wrong."

   Emma purses her lips, doing her best to look pained. "Well, I'm sure that having _Frosty the Snowman sung at you every winter, for every year of your childhood, __without fail, is probably worse. Do you know how sick to death I am of that song?"_

   "I'm guessing 'very'?" I venture, tentatively. "I think I was tipped off by that throbbing vein in your temple."

   "Well done," Emma says, her expression conveying her appreciation – or maybe lack of it. "Henry and I should get together some time and compare notes about our respective psychological hiccups."

   "And that'd be fun… how?"

   "Well, it'd make you embarrassed, for one thing, which is always worth a try," Emma grins, her face brightening as she makes that suggestion, "and for another, it might finally get rid of the psychological trauma I've suffered every Christmas since I was five years old."

   "Couldn't you find another way of doing that?" I suggest hopelessly. "You know, one that wouldn't involve me?" 

   Emma shakes her head, and my heart begins to sink. "Sorry, Bobby," she continues mercilessly. "As the drill sergeant said to the private – I think you just volunteered."

   "You _are becoming like the Professor," I moan plaintively, clutching both hands to my forehead. "Please tell me you won't shave your head."_

   "I don't think there's any danger of that," Emma says flatly, running her hands through her hair as she does so. "I have too many endorsement deals with Max Factor and L'Oreal." She poses provocatively for me, letting the soft light coming from the fixtures on the walls glint brightly off her platinum-blonde bob. "I don't think they'd look too kindly on a bald person sponsoring their shampoo or cosmetics, do you?"

   I can see her point. "I guess not. The Prof must get his money from something else, I suppose…" 

   Emma takes a nonchalant mouthful of her meal and then reaches for her bag again, before fishing out a business card and handing it to me. Neatly printed on the card's pristine surface are the words _Frost Industries: Making Our World A Better Place, and beneath that, I can see a small list of major shareholders. The Professor is one of them. _

   Almost speechless, I point at the card with one hand, my mouth hanging open like the hangar door of SHIELD's Helicarrier. Unsure of what to say next, I manage to clamp my jaw closed, although I keep my finger poised and directed right at the Professor's name.

   _If you're going to say something, Bobby, say it up here, Emma says bluntly, tapping her temple in between cutting her food into dainty mouthfuls. __Don't just sit there looking like you've just been hit in the face by a frying pan._

   "I think I just have," I say, breathlessly. "So… all the time we X-Men were fighting the Hellfire Club, the Professor had shares in Frost Industries?"

   Emma nods. "All the time." She holds up a hand to cut off my reply before it's even halfway out of my throat, and continues "He's an intelligent man. Frost Industries is a successful company – I think, along with Stark Industries and Microsoft, and maybe Worthington Industries as well, we're one of the top industrial producers on the planet. Investing in my company is a smart move, Bobby. You can't deny success."

   I shake my head slowly. "Well, I'll say one thing for the Prof – he's got more business savvy than I gave him credit for." I pause, to try and get some order back into my skull, and to gulp some more of my wine. "And I'll tell you what, Emma – you certainly seem to have all the self-confidence I thought you did."

   Emma smiles far-too-sweetly at me. "Why, darling, you say the _loveliest things!"_

   "I… do?" I'm not sure how to respond to that. Not many girls have actually complimented me on my silver tongue, after all…

   "Yes, you do. Massage my ego some more, Bobby, and I might let you take me home," Emma purrs softly.

   "Okay, now I _know you're joking," I blurt, almost without thinking. "No girl's ever said that to me without wanting something in return."_

   Emma's eyes light up. I think I've just given her a whole new batch of ammunition to play with, like the idiot I am. "Whoever said I didn't?" she chuckles. "I suppose you'll just have to wait and see, won't you?"

   _Oh boy…_

*

Outside the restaurant it's begun to rain, thick dark clouds hiding the moon from view and making the only light available that of the street lamps on the pavement. Emma taps her foot on the pavement and looks at her watch for a moment or two, annoyance flowing off her in waves.

   "Something wrong?" I ask her, already knowing the answer.

   "Lawrence isn't here," she says impatiently. "I asked him to be here at midnight, and… well, you can see for yourself that he's not." She gathers her long white coat about her a little more, and tries to stop shivering long enough to swear loudly at her absent driver. She doesn't succeed as far as the shivering is concerned, but she _does manage get off a string of creative curses, most of which would probably make a Hell's Angel blush._

   "Why, Emma, I didn't know you had it in you," I say, not even fazed by her right now. After making it through an evening alone with her, I think I've learned how best to get around her defences, and when to ignore her when she gets angry; and besides that, I'm far too tired to do anything else…

   "Then you haven't been listening to me, have you?" Emma snaps, scowling. "Where is he?"

   "You know, if you're cold, I could always give you my jacket," I offer, quietly. Emma waves me firmly away with one hand, gathering her authentic fur coat around her a little tighter as she does so.

   "No thank you, Bobby," she says, politely – more politely than I'd expected, given her annoyance. "Chivalry is a nice concept, I'm sure, but I can manage quite well enough on my own, thank you very much."

   "Well, then, I guess that means you don't want to share our body heat while we're standing out here, does it?" I suggest in a rhetorical tone, putting my jacket back on and then holding out my arms. "Russian soldiers do it all the time, you know."

   "A shame I'm not a Russian soldier, then, isn't it?" Emma suggests sardonically, raising an eyebrow. Then, her expression softens, and she trails her fingertip gently along the edge of my jaw. "There's hope for you yet, Bobby Drake," she says thoughtfully. "Perhaps I'll let you do this again after all."

   Before I have a chance to process that, Emma's limousine finally rounds a corner and arrives at the front of the restaurant, before stopping so that her driver can get out and open her door for her. Before Emma leaves, she moves in close to me – close enough so that I can smell her perfume and feel the warmth of her body against my own – and whispers in my ear "I had a wonderful time, Drake - aside from this little fiasco, of course." She shoots her driver an evil look, from which he cringes like a beaten dog. "We should do this again some time." And before I know what she's doing, she is kissing me on the lips, her hand grasping hungrily at my hip. Before I know what I'm doing, I'm leaning towards her and returning the gesture almost without thinking.

   "Yeah…. I guess we should," I tell her when she breaks the kiss, almost lost for words.

   "I'll call you," Emma promises, slipping fluidly into her limousine as she does so. "Sometime." She winks at me as the window of her door slides up silently, and I watch the limousine leave, making hardly any sound at all_._

   "Yeah," I say softly, the taste of Emma's lips still fresh on my own. "I look forward to it."


End file.
